Texas Open second spherical leaderboard
-14 R MacIntyre (Sco); -10 L Aberg (Swe); -9 Okay Roy (US), B Cauley (US), T Finau (US), T Olesen (Den); -8 A Smalley (US), A Putnam (US), S Fisk (US), J Parry (Eng), S Ryder (US), R Hisatsune (US).
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Selected others: -7 T Fleetwood (Eng); -4 M Wallace (Eng), M Penge (Eng); -2 J Spieth (US).
Scotland’s Robert MacIntyre maintained his robust type with a spherical of 64 for a four-shot midway lead at the Texas Open in San Antonio.
MacIntyre had 4 birdies in his final 5 holes together with his taking part in accomplice and Ryder Cup team-mate Ludwig Aberg of Sweden his nearest challenger.
Starting on the again 9, the world quantity 11 put down a marker with an eight-foot eagle putt at the par-five 14th and adopted that up with birdies at his subsequent two holes.
The solely blemish for the 29-year-old was a bogey at the seventeenth earlier than he regrouped to complete with a flourish for a confidence increase forward of the Masters which begins in Augusta on Thursday.
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“I’ve been driving the ball nice,” stated the Scot. “I’ve got a new driver in the bag. Iron play today was exceptional I would say.
“I hit a pure wedge shot on 17, I assumed it was completely dynamite there. Approach play, hitting the quantity, hitting the targets. Got to complete off with good placing. Overall, simply actually stable.
“I didn’t play here last year, just went straight into Augusta. This was an adjustment for that reason. I wanted to be sharp – or sharper – going into Augusta.”
Aberg had 4 birdies over his first 14 holes earlier than an eagle at the sixth, however he completed with a bogey.
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“For me, golf is about putting yourself in situations where you can win tournaments,” he stated.
“I feel like I haven’t really done that very well the last 12 months or so, but starting to see it now, which has been really nice. Starting to get back into that level, which is really nice for me to see. So I’m looking forward to one more shot at it this week.”
Among these one shot again are six-time PGA Tour winner Tony Finau who’s chasing a primary win since April 2023 and who wants a win to be invited to the Masters.
The 36-year-old American completed his spherical strongly with an eagle putt at the 18th.
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“It was nice to make an eagle on the last,” he stated. “I hit a really good drive, pushed my second shot a little, got lucky, covered the water and was able to roll that one in. Sometimes those are the small little breaks that you need to be towards the top of the leaderboard.”